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John 
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Travels 



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John Swinton's Travels. 



CURRENT VIEWS AND NOTES 



Forty Days 



France and England, 



By JOHN SWINTON. 



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NEW. YORK: 

Copyright, :S80,by 

G. IV. Carleton & Co., Ptib lis hers, 

LONDON : S. LOW, SON & CO, 
MDCCCLXXX. 



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TO MY WIFE, 



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PREFACE. 



These brief sketches, made in haste, within 
four days after my return from Europe to New 
York, are here published for reasons which will 
be found by those who properly read them, 

J. S. 

New York, October i, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— FRANCE. 

PAGE 

The Republic Flowering 9 

The Propitious Year 10 

The Strong Republic . 10 

On the Way to the Millennium 12 

Not the Fruits of Frivolity 13 

The Model City of the World 14 

The Shadow of the Sword 15 

The Three Ominous Words 15 

Three Political Meetings 16 

The Arts of the Stage 16 

The Pomp of Democracy 17 

Paradise and the Peri 17 

The Elysian Fields 18 

Victor Hugo's Charming Fute 18 

The Challenge to the Shows and Shams 21 

The Man of Wit and War 21 

Two Tombs in Pere la Chaise 24 

Yet France Stands 25 

Peaceful Ratification of Powerful Laws 25 

Beautiful Fontainebleau 27 

vii 



viii CONTENTS. . 

PAGE 

The Resounding Crash of Rifles. .............. , 27 

The Body of Wage-Workers. ........,..,......»...'...... 28 

A Significant Appropriation , . 29 

The Revelries of the Latins. 30 

The Flying Parisian 30 

The Horse Leech. 30 

Statesmanship in the Press 31 

The Deity of Paris ... .... 31 

The Subtle Spirit of CofTee. .......................... . . 32 

The Venus of Milo. ........ ........................ 33 

Royal Palaces for the People . , 33 

These were Scavengers. 33 

Things Well Worth Study. 34 



PART II.— ENGLAND. 

The Glory and Shame of London. 35 

The Variety Show 36 

The Only Hope 38 

Romance and Pathos — Thomas Carlyle 38 

The Man of Earthquakes — Karl Marx 41 

Ireland 45 

Here Again. ..,.....,.,. . 45 




John Swinton's Travels. 



PART I.— FRANCE. 

THE REPUBLIC FLOURISHING AND FLOWERING IN 
THESE PROPITIOUS YEARS. 

NEW YORK, October i, 1880.— The forty days 
of travel and observation which I enjoyed in 
France and England, and which ended w^hen I took 
the Inman steamship at Liverpool that reached here 
a few days ago, were full of novelty, surprise, inter- 
est, suggestion and benefit. One who sees these 
countries, as I then saw them, for the first time, finds 
that he has many preconceived notions to correct, 
and that neither the books he has read nor the narra- 
tives he has heard have ena^bled him to apprehend 
their features or their life. 

In France, the French Republic, the French peo- 
ple, and the city of Paris had a special and peculiar 
interest for me ; and from the hour in which I landed 
at Calais to that at which I left it for Dover, the 
scenes and experiences were of ever-varying zest, 
while some of them, especially those at Fontaine- 

[ix] 



I o JOHN S WIN TON'S TEA VELS. 

bleau, were of enchantment beyond anything I had 
ever fancied. 

In Paris, of course, I made it my business to see 
the things of ordinary and extraordinary interest — ■ 
the palaces, temples, monuments, galleries, libraries, 
parks, museums, trophies, ancient spoils and modern 
works. The days of a month w^ere all too few to 
allow more than a hasty glance at them ; and one 
might spend profitable years of study in many a 
place to which I could give but a few hours. Of 
all these familiar things I shall have nothing to say 
in the few current notes here to be made. 

THE PROPITIOUS YEAR. 

Nothing that I had heard or read about France 
before my visit tliere had given me any proper idea 
of her prosperity or of the practical welfare and 
well-being of the body of lier people. I cannot, of 
course, make any comparison of the present times 
with other years, from my own observation ; but 
the public figures agree with what I saw and heard 
on all hands of the flourishing and flowering of the 
popular life in these propitious days. 

THE STRONG REPUBLIC. 

The Republic appeared to me strong in all the 
elements of durable strength. I am often asked here 
if it will last. Ay, ay. It is an established, accepted, 
overpowering fact. The intellect, the industry, the 
interests, and the hopes of France are on its side. The 
genius of France is with it. The elections of the last 
three years, year after year, up to the present time, 
have strikingly shown what a hold it has upon the 



THE STRONG REPUBLIC. ii 

minds of the French people. Its roots are striking 
deeper and spreading farther every day. The opposi- 
tion to it in the Chambers and in the press is moribund. 
Its power in the press is far more formidable than 
that of any other French Government has ever been. 
I was told by two or three political speculators 
that the Orleans restoration might be possible in 
certain contingencies, but that it is inconceivable. I 
met Bonapartists and monarchists in Paris and else- 
wliere, but they were hopeless. 

I was in Paris during that most extraordinary 
manifestation of republican power and enthusiasm, 
the fete of the 14th of July, the new national holi- 
day, the commemoration of the fall of the Bastile. 
Not one of the fetes of the First Revolution, so 
far as they are described by historians, approached 
it in universal fervor ; and old imperialists told 
me that not one of the fetes of the Third Empire 
approached it in grandeur. I have seen some fasci- 
nating sketches of it in the American papers, but 
not Thomas Caiiyle himself could give an account 
that would convey any idea of its pomp, its pictur- 
esqueness, its gayety, its glow, or its spirit. One 
thing of peculiar significance I noticed as I made 
m^ way through the rejoicing millions — the frater- 
nization of the troops with other citizens. In the 
Rue de Rivoli, one of the most notable streets, for 
that night, of the illuminated and bedizened city, as 
well as in many other streets and avenues, you could 
see thousands of young soldiers marching arm-in- 
arm, to and fro, with the serried and multitudi- 
nous young men and women of the locality, Phry- 
gian-capped and many-spangled, dancing, singing 
the " Marseillaise," and exuberant with festivity. 



12 JOHN SWINTON'S^ TRAVELS. 

Again, at the presentation of the new republican 
flags to the troops during the day at Longchamps, I 
saw and heard the volume of republican jubilation 
in the army„ The army is republicanized. The 
army is the people; and I do not believe that even 
Gambetta's Gallifet can Gallifetize it. Here let me 
say, in leaving this point, that, though twice as many 
people as inhabit our city of New York took part in 
the fete, not a policeman was to be anywhere seen; 
and if there was any drunkenness it was not visible 
to one who saw as much of Paris that day and night 
as any man in it. 

The Republic, I repeat, is very strong, and not in 
Paris alone, but among the population of France 
at large, in so far as I had the opportunity of sound- 
ing it. The Republic will advance in its republican- 
ism ; it will not fall back into the old slough of 
despotism. 

ON THE WAY TO THE MILLENNIUM. 

I spoke a moment ago of the prosperous show of 
France. It needs but a brief period of observation 
in Paris to see that the shop-keeping, hotel-keeping, 
mercantile classes in the hundred business streets 
of the city are carrying on a trade that they find 
desirable and advantageous, though, of course, there 
is not, except in a few huge establishments, the crowd 
and rush of customers that some New York dealers 
hold to be necessary to their financial salvation. I 
took occasion to see something of many branches of 
business in many quarters of the city, and the 
reports were everywhere favorable to a surprising 
extent. The Parisian shopkeepers are less anxious, 



NOT THE FRUITS OF FRIVOLITY, 13 

hankering, and vaulting than those of New York, 
less careworn and fagged oat ; they do a safer busi- 
ness ; they are more provident ; they are less in 
haste to be rich ; they take more comfort as they go 
along ; they have a better relish for life. 

Turning to the working classes, I was surprised 
and gratified beyond measure at what I saw of tiieir 
life and advancement. I took pains to look into 
the work, the means, and the ways of life of those 
yet called the masses, the proletariat, visiting by day 
and by night, with open eyes, not only the crowded 
parts east of the Place of the Bastile, toward Pere 
la Chaise, all over the St. Antoine Quarter, up 
among the Buttes of Chaumont and toward Lake 
St. Fargeau, down beyond the abattoirs and about 
the Place d'ltalie, but through a hundred other 
streets of the swarming myriads of labor. I found 
these working myriads enjoying a measure of daily 
welfare far beyond, as I believe, those of any other 
city in the world, and so far beyond those of Lon= 
don, Birmingham, and Liverpool, whom I subse- 
quently saw^, or those of New York, whom I have 
seen since boyhood, that any comparison is out of 
the question. 

But on this point I shall again touch in the 
course of these current notes. 

NOT THE FRUITS OF FRIVOLITY. 

AVhen you behold tlie solid splendors of archi- 
tecture, old and new, that are to be found every- 
where in France ; when you think of the force, 
grandeur, and durability of French achievements 
in every line of mental and manual activity ; when 



14 JOHN SWIN TON'S TRAVELS. 

you consider the substantiality, comfort, and accept- 
ability of the city of Paris ; when you observe the 
depth of French life and the sweep of French 
genius — how unworthy appears the remark so often 
heard in the United States as the summing-up of 
French character, that "the French are a frivolous 
people ! " 

THE MODEL CITY OF THE WORLD. 

You can't help seeing in Paris how greatly the 
well-being of the population at large is promoted 
by the thoroughly-efficient, highly-intelligent, and 
genuinely-democratic administration of the affairs 
of the city by the Municipal Council and by the 
Mayoralties. The watchfulness over the interests 
of the community, the attention to every feature of 
the public life, are extraordinary to a New Yorker, 
Twenty years more of such service as Paris now 
has, impelled by the public spirit which animates 
the population, will place her far higher than she 
now stands. 

I would that the managers of our great American 
cities might study the management of the greater 
city of Paris. When I am told by our plutocracy 
that the universal suffrage of New York is incom- 
patible with the proper administration of the city 
business, let me ask them what are the limits of 
suffrage among the Parisians ? 

The consequence of the watchfulness over the 
public welfare that prevails in Paris is seen in the 
mortality statistics— the truest test of the value of 
any government — which show how largely the 
death-rate of the citv is below that of New York. 



THREE OMINOUS WORDS, 15 



THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD. 

The army of France is never out of your sight— 
whether you are in Paris or in the lesser places, or in 
the rural regions. Soldiers everywhere — cavalry, 
infantry, artillery. At the town of Fontainebleau 
there were thousands of them forever in view. The 
manhood and mind and strenortli and resources of 
France are wasted on this gigantic establishment. 
Surely, some better way than that now in vogue 
ought to be found for guarding the country, 

THE THREE OMINOUS WORDS. 

Over the entrance of every cathedral and church 
in France, as well as over the palaces of kings and 
emperors, you will find in very large characters the 
three conjuring words of French democracy — ''''Lib- 
erty, Equality, Fraternity'' — inscribed by order of 
the Government, They are over the portals of the 
beautiful Madelaine ; they are over the great door 
of the venerable Notre Dame, and even when I went 
to St. Denis, to the cathedral which contains the 
relics or the effigies of the Kings of France for 
many a generation, I found the three words of dread 
to monarchs high over the ancient porch. Of course 
they are obnoxious to the hierarchy and the priests, 
and to many of the laity who pass under them on 
the way to the service ; but the State, which pen- 
sions religion, insists that the Church shall recog- 
nize the basis of its authority. 



1 6 JOHN SWIN TON'S TRAVELS, 



THREE POLITICAL MEETINGS. 

The three political meetings at which I was pres- 
ent in Paris — two of them on Sunday — edified me in 
many ways. 

I was struck by the genuine interest which citi- 
zens of all sorts take in political questions and 
action, 

I was struck, also, by the elevated character of 
the arguments and language that were addressed to 
the audiences — those of workingmen as well as of 
students and of the general body of citizens. 

Great principles, current policies, and special 
measures were discussed in a way that showed the 
speakers' confidence in the intelligence of their 
hearers ; and the hearers justified this confidence by 
the way in which they appreciated the speeches. 

It was evident to me that the political education 
and mental growth of the Parisian masses were very 
far advanced. 

THE ARTS OF THE STAGE. 

The magnificent interior of the new opera house 
and its decorations are the wonder of every visitor, 
and the grand foyer is more splendid than that of any 
palace I have seen ; the ten million dollars that were 
lavished upon it brought forth something different 
from Mr. Tweed's New York court-house, which 
cost more. The opera of the night was the " Hugue- 
nots"; and what a spectacle a,nd an artistic triumph it 
was ! Salomon, Montalban, and the others were in 
their glory. In one of the boxes was the ex-Queen 
of Spain ; in another was the Prince of Wales; and 



PARADISE AND THE PERL 17 

the brilliant swell of auditors in the amphitheatre, 
stalls, and galleries were not less picturesque than 
the array of performers upon the ample stage. 
Another night, at the Theatre Frangais, which, with 
nearly three centuries of growth and good fortune, 
is the finest flower of dramatic art in the world, I 
enjoyed a performance of that charming comedy, 
" Le Gendre de M. Poirier," in which the inimitable 
Got and Delaunay appeared. Such playing and 
such places for, play as may be found in Paris are 
attraction and novelty enough for any American in 
these summer nights. 

THE POMP OF DEMOCRACY. 

The other night, between acts of the '^ Hugue- 
nots," I stood on tlie lofty balcony of the splendif- 
erous opera house, fronting the superb and sweep- 
ing Avenue de 1' Opera, glittering with a myriad 
gas lamps, high over which rose the serried line of 
great Jablockhoff candles, with their lambent flow- 
ing flame, throwing into relief the solid, spacious 
and ornate architecture of the avenue, the host of 
promenaders, the festive parties regaling themselves 
at the coffee tables on the sidewalks, the whirl of 
open carriages and the trundling omnibuses with 
their passengers aloft. The scene was fascinating ; 
and where else in the world was there ever a demo- 
cratic spectacle like this? 

PARADISE AND THE PERL 

I spent the other August evening from sunset 
till midnight at one of the out-door tables of a cafe 
on the Rue Royale. To the right was that superb 



1 8 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS. 

Greelc temple, the Madelaine, with its massive Cor- 
intliian colonnade ; to the left was the hoary obe- 
lisk of Luxor and the fountains between the Elysian 
Fields and the gardens of the Tuileries ; all was 
gayety, variety and charm ; the sky and the foliage, 
the lights and the life, the fashions and the manners, 
the language and the laughter, the beverages and 
the fragrant cigars, how they rejoice the wits ; and 
none the less when I think that here in Paris there 
are ten thousand such places in the open air, at 
which perhaps half a million people may enjoy 
themselves to-night, though few can be so happy as 
I am over such philosophy as that with which my 
literary companion beguiles the passing hours. 

THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. 

What pleasant scenes, including the open-air 
dining-scenes, you have in the Champs ElyseeSj 
from 5 to lo o'clock in these August evenings ! 

VICTOR HUGO'S CHARMING FETE, 

Victor Hugo's fete day was announced, and it 
was my fortune to take part in its celebration at his 
new house, during my stay in Paris, It was in the 
garden behind his house that the aged poet, philos- 
opher and politician, beloved by France and honored 
by the world, welcomed his friends in the evening 
after the family dinner, in which those two grand- 
children, whose names shine in the lustre of his lit- 
erary genius, took part. The garden, lined with 
trees of heavy foliage, and enriched with shrubbery 
and tropical plants and flowers, was transformed 
into a fairy scene by variegated lanterns, lights, 
flags, and other decorations among the branches and 



VICTOR HUGO'S FETE. 19 

leaves ; and you might see at one spot a small sup- 
ply of fireworks which the two dainty youngsters, 
who were frolicking about after their flight from 
the dinner table, had procured and were to setoff as 
a surprise in honor of their grandfather. 

Victor Hugo made his appearance on the balcony 
fronting the garden in which his friends were enjo}?-- 
ing themselves. Among the foliage near his left 
was his marble bust, taken in his youthful prime of 
about 28 or 30; on his right, in a leafy bower, hung 
an oil painting representing him in the full matur- 
ity of perhaps 50; and between these two he himself 
stood, 78 years of age, solid, white-bearded, severe- 
faced, serene-faced, not altogether unlike a Jupiter 
upon whom time had told. It was an interesting 
spectacle — interesting indeed. His friends of both 
sexes, among whom were many authors and artists 
of celebrity, pressed forward and around him; there 
were salutation and embracing and kissing of hands, 
and gifts of llow^ers, and words of enthusiasm and 
affection, and he whom they called "the master" ac- 
cepted their homage w^ith dignity, courtesy, and cor- 
diality. An enchanting young American lady, who 
had accompanied her mother with myself to the fete, 
presented him with a conflux of flowers, and the 
beaming joy w^ith which he seized them and, like a 
courtier, kissed her hand, was the reward. Sudden- 
ly he broke from his friends; he saw among the 
shrubbery of the garden the two grandchildren on 
whom he dotes, just as they set off one of their little 
fire-rockets; and as he stood alone on the illuminated 
gravel w^alk at tlie point to which he had hast- 
ened, they set off other baby fireworks among the 
decorated bushes till he clapped his hands with glee 



20 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS. 

and shouted "Bravo" in slender voice. Till the 
last little star was sent up into the air he g.azed with 
patriarchal joy at the grandchildren, leaving behind 
the older intellectual lights, and then the boy and 
girl found in his fervor how proud he had been of 
their display. He chatted gayly with his friends as 
he passed around among them, but he never lost 
sight of his favorites; and it was evident that, in life 
as in literature, he well knew " the art of being a 
grandfather." 

Victor Hugo was in sound frame and health; all 
his faculties were on the alert and in order. He con- 
verses fluently and philosophically ; he takes a deep 
interest in French politics, and labors ceaselessly to 
strengthen the Republic and promote the growth of 
democratic ideas. His books of the last few years 
show that his mind is as brave and impassioned and 
rich in imagery as ever it was ; and he delivered a 
discourse on education while I was in Paris which 
was a masterpiece of diction as well as of comprehen- 
sive thought. It is sixty-three years since his first 
poem appeared ; fifty years since the battle of ro- 
manticism raged around his name, and the triumph 
of " Hernani " brought about a literary revolution ; 
thirty-five years since he was created a Peer of 
France by King Louis Philippe ; twenty-nine years 
since he was proscribed by the Bonaparte usurper 
and sent into exile, and nearly ten years since he re- 
turned to France upon the proclamation of the Re- 
public which he had done so much to establish. 
These ten years have been among the most impor- 
tant years of his life,'which was still fertile and full 
of hope when I saw him at his fete about forty 
days ago. 



MAN OF WI2' AND WAR, 21 



THE CHALLENGE TO THE SHOWS AND SHAMS. 

The mobility of republican politics in France is 
in striking contrast witli the political stagnation of 
inan)^ other countries. The gravest questions are 
kept open ; and the whole world is put under in- 
quiry. The State, as it stands, is challenged ; the 
church is challenged ; so are property and capital ; 
so are forms and laws and institutions. They must, 
at their peril, demonstrate by their fruits that they 
have the riglit to exist. 

This perpetual challenge of the fundamental 
shows, shadows, and sliams of the world, is con- 
ducive to freshness and freedom of thought, and has 
much to do with that marvelous intellectual activ- 
ity which appears especially in Paris, but also in 
other parts of France. The spirit of which it is the ex- 
pression belongs to all mankind ; but it obtained a 
peculiar momentum in France at the time of the 
First Republic, when all things were in solution. 

THE MAN OF WIT AND WAR. 

The most interesting of all the descendants of 
the kings of Burgundy is the Count de Lucay, who 
returned to Paris the night of my arrival there, 
after nine years of banishment and exile from 
France. The career of the Count de Lugay, better 
known as Henri Rochefort, is familiar to every 
reader of newspapers. His politics, his Lanterney 
his war upon the empire, his wit, his duels, his par- 
ticipation in the Commune, his barricades, his de- 
portation to New Caledonia, his flight from there, 
his passage through the United States, his six years 



2 2 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS. 

of busy exile in Geneva, and his dramatic appear- 
ance in Paris immediately after the passage of the 
Amnesty Act of July last, have kept him in the 
public eye ever since he emerged from the clerk- 
ship which he held when a young man. 

The amnesty took effect on the 14th of July, and 
hours before the dawn of the morning of that day 
he was in Paris, and simultaneously with his advent 
on the boulevards the first number of his new paper, 
the Intransigeant^ made its appearance at all the 
kiosks of the city. It appeared opportunely on the 
day of the great fete, when all the city and half a 
million of strangers were in the streets, and the 
extraordinary sale of 200,000 copies showed that it 
was at once in th%3 hands of the greater part of the 
population. The news girls, who sat behind piles 
of them, did not like the name, wiiich was a strange 
and hard one, but their receipts from it soon recon- 
ciled them even to that, and in an hour or two they 
uttered it as though it had been an ancient familiar 
of their speech. '''■ L' Intransigeant^ grand journal," 
said my dainty and solicitous news vender of the 
Avenue de I'Opera, in a tone and with a smile that 
would have made even Paul de Cassagnac himself 
purchase a copy. Rt3chefort resumed at once with 
all his energy the work of agitation which had been 
stopped by the flames of the Commune. He turned 
the artillery of his new paper against his old friend 
Gambetta, as he had turned that of the Lanterne 
against his old enemy, the third Napoleon. You 
not only saw his leaders every day, you not only 
heard his speeches in various parts of the city, 
knew of his presiding at this conference or that 
banquet, learned of his organizing one movement 



MAN OF WIT AND WAR, 23 

or another, defending M. Cadole or bringing Mar- 
cerou to punishment ; but you saw by the publica- 
tions that, at the same time, he was sending out two 
serial romances and preparing ncAv editions of his 
various works. He had not yet found time to fight 
a duel, but he was engaged in several newspaper 
combats which will very surely be settled at the 
point of the sword. Caricatures of liim appeared 
daily ; the poFice were on the alert when he held a 
meeting, and even his rivals of the press assisted in 
the business he took hold of. 

I first saw Rochefort a few days after his arrival, 
at the "'punch of honor" given him by the young 
students of the Latin quarter ; the next day I met 
liim at a great Sunday meeting of working men and 
women, at the Chayne Hall, and I passed an hour 
with him the same evening at the banquet of a 
thousand friends of both sexes, by the side of Lake 
St. Fargeau. He looked like a different man from 
the lean, severe refugee who appeared at the New 
York Academy of Music on the 5th of June, 1874. 
He is now robust, partially gray, of energetic voice, 
and it is evident that his years in Geneva have 
added to his power as well as his maturity. His 
salutation was such as only a Frenchman can give, 
and his paper of next day showed that the memory 
of his reception in New York was yet vivid in his 
mind. His speech at the banquet was the pro- 
gramme of action for his party, and it was no less 
remarkable for its comprehensiveness than for its 
temperance. The audience were responsive and 
enthusiastic, and when he ended they sprang to 
their feet, raised their wine-glasses in the air, and 
gave him a salvo that swept over Lake St. Fargeau 



24 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS. 

to the walls of Paris. Among those beside him 
were M. Cattiaux, the Municipal Counselor, Beau- 
quier, the Deputy, Clovis Hugues, the editor, and 
others, but Rochefort was easily the master, as he 
was the figurehead, of the occasion. 

What may be the result of his anti-Gam betta 
war time w^ill tell ; but that he is sustained by a 
very large part of the population of Paris, no one 
will doubt who has watched his career since the 
14th of July. 

TWO TOMBS IN PERE LA CHAISE. 

Pere la Chaise, of course. And what a city of 
the dead it is, so utterly unlike any cemetery in the 
United States. Renowned names everywhere — men 
of letters, men of affairs, men of history. Many of 
the tombs are of noble and impressive architecture, 
and the family tributes, the mementoes of affection, 
the immortelles, crowns, chaplets, crosses, pictures, 
epitaphs, and artistic decorations to be seen on 
almost every tomb show that the people of the gay 
city do not fail to honor the graves that arc dear to 
them. At one tomb you will see a family party, at 
another a mourning friend, at another a group of 
old admirers, and this poor, aged, weeping widow 
is carrying that cheap crown of artificial flowers to 
the humble burial-place of the husband whom she 
lost in her youth. Ay, here are Abelard and He- 
loise, and there is the monument, vast and absurd, 
upon which Beaujoir lavished his fortune. 

Here are two tombs but a step from each other — 
one of them surmounted by a monument which, 
with its base, is perhaps thirty feet in height ; but 
both base and monument are almost hidden from 



RATIFICATION OF LAWS. 25 

sight by floral offerings, decorations, crowns, in- 
scriptions of praise, and streamers witli words of 
affection sent from cities of France, from political, 
benevolent, and workingmen's societies, and from 
individual friends, on the 14th of July ; the floor of 
the open vault is strewn with cards and other me- 
mentoes left by the visitors to this tomb, which is 
the tomb of Raspail. Not because he was a natural- 
ist and chemist, not because of his camphor and 
his liqueur, isall this glorification of his memory, 
but because, as it appears, he was the friend of the 
people — ramidupeuph — and showed his friendship 
in ways that keep his memory green. The other 
tomb to which I have referred is that of M. 
Thiers, President of the French Republic a few 
years ago; — but tell me why the contrast and the 
neglect ; why there is not a crown, a flower, or a 
word of praise for the old politician of Versailles ? 

YET FRANCE STANDS. 

It would be interesting to inquire how many of 
the demands of the men of the March revolt have 
beea complied vv-ith, or in how far any of them was 
conceded, from the suppression of the Paris Com- 
mune to the amnesty of last July, The primary 
and supreme demand of their programme was The 
Republic ; and that is now well established ; but 
this is not by any means the only article of the 
programme that has been won, or is in the way of 
being won. And yet France stands ! 

PEACEFUL RATIFICATION OF POWERFUL LAWS. 

I w^as down at Fontainebleau on the day (Sun- 
day) of the elections of the ist of August, which 
2 



26 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS. 

were held throughout France. In the preliminary 
management of the elections I had seen nothing of 
some of the features with which we of New York 
are familiar on such occasions — the torchlight pro- 
cessions, with music and flags, the great turn-outs, 
with their speeches and appeals, the newspaper 
agony, and so on. On the day of voting you had 
hardly any evidence that an election was going on 
in Fontainebleau, though the whole population of 
the place voted, and the triumph of one of the par- 
ties was complete. 

The Government and the political leaders watched 
with interest for the result ; but I heard of no offi- 
cial pressure of any kind. Gambetta had just se- 
cured the execution of two of the chief features of 
his opportunist policy — the expulsion of the Jesuits 
and the amnesty of the exiled Communists ; and 
the judgment of France upon these grave measures 
was to be taken at this election. 

The sweeping victories of the Government ended 
all debate as to the popular attitude toward the 
measures in question, terminated both the fears and 
the hopes which prevailed in certain quarters, gave 
the Gambettists an accession of power which at 
once immeasurably strengthened their hands, and 
prepared the way for other serious projects which 
will undoubtedly make their appearance before a half 
year passes by. Many of the monarchists and im- 
perialists surrendered to the Republic after the ist 
of August ; and one of the curious incidents of the 
moment was the change of posture one morning of 
the great Imperialist organ, the Figaro. It had been 
the Figaro's boast that, though a man might possibly 
be as much of an imperialist as the Figaro^ no man 



THE CRASH OF RIFLES. 27 

could possibly be more of an imperialist than the 
Figaro ; and when it unexpectedly took an oppor- 
tunist squint, it was evident that Gambetta had en- 
tered the very citadel of the enemy. I have not seen 
the Figaro since that day, and know not w^here it is 
now pointing ; but many other Bonapartists and Or- 
leanists took new ground at that time, from which it 
will not be easy for them to turn. 

BEAUTIFUL FONTAINEBLEAU. 

I spent the greater part of a week at the ancient 
city of Fontainebleau. These days, those gardens 
and woods, palaces and domains, the delightful city 
itself, and this altogether charming hotel of the 
Black Eagle, "founded in 1720" — is there in all the 
world elsewhere such poetry of nature and art? 

THE RESOUNDING CRASH OF RIFLES. 

Visiting Versailles one day, to see the place and 
the palace, I took the short cut up the hill and 
through the woods to the barracks of Satory, in 
which I found troops enjoying the afternoon on the 
greensward and in the well-kept huts of the plain. 

It was on this plain of Satory, during the days 
of M. Thiers, that the military executions following 
the suppression of the Commune took place in 187 1. 
There is w^here the firing parties performed their 
hideous work. Here is where the squad poured 
their bullets intothe heart of the high-souled young 
artillery officer. Gen. Rossel, whose memoirs show 
him possessed of a genius that might have honored 
France — ^aye, that did well honor France. 

The field is very serene and peaceful as it is 
gilded by the setting sun ; but I hear the crash of 



28 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS. 

those rifles resounding over the world through the 

ages. 

THE BODY OF WAGE WORKERS. 

In a previous page of these notes I alluded to 
the remarkable measure of welfare enjoyed by the 
working masses of Paris, and to my exploration of 
those quarters and streets of the city in which you 
find the heaviest clusters of ihQ proletariat. 

It was strengthening to see how much has been 
done in Paris to make life tolerable for those who 
make the world wealthy. 

I found them in their homes ; mingled with them 
in their resorts ; visited their meetings ; and saw 
them at hundreds or thousands of the out-door cafes 
with which all parts of Paris are dotted. They did 
not seem to be nearly as much overworked as those 
of the English cities ; you did not feel that they 
were unmanned by underfeeding ; they were always 
lively and chatty, often gay and never discourteous. 
I saw nothing of drunkenness, but much drinking 
of light wines and too much of absinthe ; they were 
prudent, economical, and cleanly ; family morality 
had a strong hold upon them ; there was a very 
high grade of intelligence among them ; they were 
remarkably well versed in political questions, and. 
interested in the administration of public affairs ; 
and they were looking toward many improvements 
that promise to relieve the evils of their lot under 
the anarchy of modern life. These evils are yet 
many and grievous, and I do not say that their con- 
dition is by any means, in any way, what it ought 
properly to be. But if so much advancement has 
been made, there is every hope of far greater ad- 
vancement under a Republic that comprehends its 



A SIGNIFICANT APPROPRIATION. 29 

duties. The frugality that you nolice on all hands 
is striking. A man will make a fine and satisfactory 
meal on a bowl of soup, radishes and salt, a half 
loaf of bread, with half a bottle of wine ; then he 
will roll his cigarette and talk politics like a Deputy 
— strong politics very often. The extent and inten- 
sity of the opposition to the Church among the 
Parisian masses can hardly be overstated. At a 
Sunday meeting of many thousands, which I took 
a look at, the dogmas of modern religion were 
assaulted and ridiculed out and out ; and of this 
sort of thing you can find any amount. 

A SIGxNIFICANT APPROPRIATION. 

Workingmen's societies, assemblies, and meet- 
ings are often encouraged, in very practical ways, 
by the authorities of the city. The condition of the 
people is observed, their complaints are listened to, 
and even the vagaries that may be put out in their 
name are not disregarded. One thing that occurred 
while I stayed in Paris was very striking to me as a 
New Yorker, who had seen poor workingmen's 
meetings prohibited by the city authorities, crushed 
by the clubs of the police, ridiculed by the press, 
and feared by the wealthy. A series of local par- 
liaments (regional congresses) of the workers in 
various trades had been held during the summer 
throughout France, and it was agreed that they 
should hold a general congress of delegates from all 
parts of the Republic at Havre, in October (1880). 
What did that most enlightened body, the Municipal 
Council of Paris, do in the premises? Why, they 
did the finest thing in the world — the 5th of August 
was the date — a thin.Q^ which I commend to the notice 



30 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS, 

of the Common Council of New York ; they made 
an appropriation of 3,000 francs to pay the expenses 
of the delegates selected by the workingmen's socie- 
ties of Paris ! This will seem a startling and ridicu- 
lous thing to the New York press ; but it is signifi- 
cant of the way in which the best practical minds of 
France regard the great questions of the times. 

THE REVELRIES OF THE LATINS. 

I looked at one of those wild students' balls in 
the Latin quarter, so much spoken of. Two or three 
thousands of the students from the score of colleges 
in that quarter danced and flirted with a host of 
young women in the hall and garden during the 
two hours before midnight. 

There was high revelry in the evil place, but 
there was affability and perfect freedom from drunk- 
enness, the little glasses of beer now and then 
brought to the tables appearing to be the only bev- 
erage quaffed that night. 

THE FLYING PARISIAN. 

The pleasant open cabs or voitures of Paris are 
a perpetual relief ; they are seen everywhere ; they 
are always ready ; the fare is cheap, and it is fixed ; 
the drivers are polite and helpful ; the horses are 
good ; they save your time and strength ; they are 
one of the chief conveniences of a city which has all 
the means and appliances of life in an amazing state 
of convenience. 

THE HORSE LEECH. 

An offensive and degrading custom of Paris is 
that of gratuities or pourboirese At a hotel your 



THE DEITY OF PARIS, 31 

attendants and servants must have their pourboire. 
If you take a lemonade at an out-door table, there 
is the pourboire ; if you take a cab, the driver must 
have it ; if you are shaved, you must give it to the 
barber ; at the theatre some trifling convenience 
will make it necessary ; for every petty service you 
are required to pay it. 

The custom ought to be done away with. The 
receiver of the fee demeans himself, and the giver is 
annoyed. 

STATESMANSHIP IN THE PRESS. 

There are many radical daily papers of more or 
less influence in Paris. One morning, at a kiosk 
near my hotel, I procured ten of them, all of strong 
Democratic color, and displaying remarkable vivac- 
ity in their columns. 

The press is a colossal power in France ; and 
the number of editors or newspaper writers who 
have played prominent parts on the stage of France 
in the business of statesmanship, especially dur- 
ing the great crises of French history, is almost 
equal to the number of statesmen who are known 
to fame. At this moment the most powerful 
politician in France, Gambetta, is a journalist ; so 
is his most formidable adversary, Rochefort ; and 
it were easy to give a list of editors' names in all 
fields of administrative activity. The method 
adopted by newspaper writers, of putting their sig- 
natures to their articles, helps to bring them into 
notice and to promote their public fortune. 



THE DEITY OF PARIS. 
Driving through a narrow old street, I alighted 
on seeing the sign Cafe Procope, recalling the fact 



35 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS, 

that it used to be a rendezvous of the encyclope- 
dists of last century, and there T found Voltaire's 
chair and table, with other relics of those days ; but 
the polite old lady who keeps it w^as not well versed 
in such matters, and knew more about that quarter 
of the cafe in which Gambetta, some years ago, 
used to air his politics over his plain fare. 

You are made aware, in many ways, that Vol- 
taire is the intellectual deity of Paris. You find the 
sculptured features of the author of Mariamne in the 
new Opera ; you find Houdon's statue of the author 
<jf L't/idiscret in the Theatre Frangais ; you find the 
figure of the famous Encyclopedist in the grounds 
of the Polytechnic School ; you see that a boule- 
vard and a quay have been called after him ; you 
notice tliat a daily paper has taken his name ; and 
you learn by a hundred other signs how deeply this 
man has affected the mind of Paris. 

THE SUBTLE SPIRIT OF COFFEE. 

How hard \i is to get even tolerable coffee at 
one's breakfast in any of the hotels, restaurants or 
cafes of Paris ! Not only did I fail to find it at any 
of the three pompous liotels in which I stayed, but 
it was not found at such places as the new Big- 
non's. The Grand Vefour, and Ledoyen, or at sun- 
dry cafes of the Rue Royale and the Boulevards. 
In all these places, a poor bean, badly roasted, 
sparingly used, crossed with chicory, and unskillfully 
decocted, was the substitute for the inspiring bever- 
age that one may enjoy if he know^s its creative 
spell. 



THESE WERE SCAVENGERS. 33 



THE VENUS OF MILO. 

An editor who is not unknown to the readers of 
The Smito\<\ me before I left New Yorl< to go to 
the Louvre while in Paris, and " take a long look " 
at the Venus of Milo. I did so. She fascinated 
me — her perfect ligure and her perfect grace. This 
Aphrodite is not dominated by the active passion 
of love. The face and head are those of a full, 
free, superb w^oman, with all the qualities of mind 
and life in the finest harmony. You could gaze at 
her for hours, for days, forever. 

ROYAL PALACES FOR THE PEOPLE. 

The old royal palaces in Paris and other parts of 
France are largely used for the Government service 
or devoted to public museums and galleries. The 
I.ouvre and the Luxembourg, as well as Versailles 
and Fontainebleau, are put to good account. The 
ruins of the Tuileries are not yet removed. 

THESE WERE SCAVENGERS. 

Opening the shutters of my apartment on the 
ground floor of a hotel on the Rue Caumartin, at 
an early hour one August morning, I noticed a gen- 
tleman and lady, with a boy, contiguous to a cart in 
the street, the pavement of which w^as as smooth as 
a marble table, and about as clean. The young 
lady, who was dressed in a nice figured calico and a 
clean apron, with a white cap on her head, had a 
broom in her hand, which she plied quietly in her 
daily business as a street sweeper ; the gentleman 
whom she assisted used his shovel by her side, and 



34 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS. 

their boy drove the cart, into which the sweepings 
were thrown. It was one of the ordinary sights 
whicli you may see in many parts of Paris of a 
morning. In about an hour an inspector on horse- 
back rode through the street to see that the work 
had been properly done. And it was. 

THINGS WELL WORTH STUDY. 

I have not in these current notes of Paris 
alluded to the abattoirs, in which meats are scienti- 
fically and economically prepared for the use of the 
people ; or to the gigantic hall of wines, with stor- 
age of twenty million gallons ; or to the huge gov- 
ernment tobacco factory ; or to the water and gas 
works ; or to the cheap telegraphy ; or to many 
other branches of the popular service, of deep in- 
terest to all who study the public economies. 



PART II ""ENGLAND. 

THE GLORY AND SHAME OF LONDON. 

In London and other English cities, as in Paris 
and other French cities, I made it my business to see 
the great works of architecture, art, royalty, and 
history. 

In the people and the life of London, however, I 
took a surpassing interest. Of the aristocracy, an 
ordinary stranger sees little beyond their London 
residences ; and beside these you can view the 
sumptuous establishments of the wealthy people of 
the West End. The business places and the count- 
less shops of the myriad streets of trade give you a 
dazed notion of the tremendous volume of activity 
in I^ondon. 

I was overwhelmed by the spectacle of the hid- 
eous squalor, the sunken, hopeless degradation of 
the swarming masses in the poorer quarters of Lon- 
don. It is indescribable, and I am amazed that the 
owners and managers of England do not look at it, 
or try to deal with it. I do not refer only to Little 
Earl street and the streets contiguous to the Seven 
Dials, which I visited on a Saturday night, but to 
hundreds of other localities in the central and east- 

[35] 



S6 JOHN SW IN TON'S TRAVELS. 

ern quarters, the horrors of which would obscure 
even those of Dante's "place in hell called Male- 
bolge." At the time of my stay in London I had 
not yet seen the analogous quarters of Birmingham, 
though I had seen the Canongate of Edinburgh, but 
the sight was enough. 

Then how could I speak of the Babylonian 
abominations, the swirl of putridity, that confronted 
me one night in the Strand, when, on arriving at the 
Charing Cross station, near midnight, I walked as 
far as Ludgate Circus ? 

The London correspondent of The Sun, who 
knows what he is writing about in describing 
English aristocratic and high life society, has re- 
cently given some pictures of its moral decay 
that are appalling ; but that high society did not 
fall under my observation. In other classes of the 
community of London, it seemed to me that the 
processes of organic disintegration were being 
hastened in a way that will nqvj soon terminate — 
somewhere. 

I know of the strength of England. I see the 
towers of Windsor Castle, the Horse Guards, the 
Bank of England, Westminster Abbey, and the 
Parliament Houses. But, alas ! what else do we 
see, at the same time, in these vast cities of industry 
and struggle ? 

THE VARIETY SHOW. 

In my tours in and around London the variety 
of objects to be thought over grew with every day 
— many of them pleasant and beautiful in the high- 
est degree. 

I might tell how I heard an intellectual and at- 



THE VARIETY SHOW. 37 

tractive debate on a petty subject in the House of 
Commons ; how I was impressed on the Sunday and 
Monday I spent in magnificent Westminster Abbey, 
crowded with effigies and monuments, so many of 
which are in honor of official butchers and Bagitious 
women ; Irow I enjoyed those great popuhir palaces 
of art, the Kensington and British Museums; how 
the old times were brought back by Jerusalem 
Chamber and the Temple Church ; how beneficent 
are the free parks ; how I saw Canterbury Cathe- 
dral and York Minster, strolled through Ramsgate, 
gazed upon the scene of Gray's Elegy at the hour of 
parting day, spent some time in Stratford-on-Avon, 
and discovered Falstaff with sweet Mistress Anne 
Page keeping the Red Hart Inn near Windsor, the 
very spot at which Shakespeare carried on his dra- 
matic revelries with the old knight. I might tell of 
the joyance with which one views the farms and 
fields, the cottages and villages, of England. Ex- 
periences like these you may find over England, 
and it were easy to sketch them in free hand from 
the memory. 

One sketch, and a dolorous one, might be of my 
visit to Edinburgh, when, leaving my hotel and wan- 
dering out toward evening, I struck a street which 
liad an old castle at one end, an old palace at the 
other, and several old churches between them, but 
which, under the name of the Canongaie, Avas filled 
with a horde of de-humanized human beings, the 
most abject I liad ever seen — even more abject, in 
some respects, than the hordes I subsequently saw 
in London and Birmingham. 

But let the ghosts of these various sketches pass 
from my mind into limbo. 



38 JOHN SWINTON'S TRAVELS. 



THE ONLY HOPE. 

We have all heard very often of the charitable 
institutions, the co-operative concerns, the popular 
improvement societies, the trade unions, the moral 
movements, the sanitary projects, and the countless 
reformers of England ; but how slight, after all, is 
the impression that all of them, with their enormous 
expenditures and labor, have made upon the misera- 
ble millions. I apprehend that only when the gov- 
ernment undertakes the primary duties of a govern- 
ment, will there be any serious show^ of betterment. 

ROMANCE AND PATHOS— THOMAS CARLYLE, 

Driving through the lovely, fertile, finely-cultured 
farming lands of the Lothians, in the south of Scot- 
land, and talking with the farmers, who are all 
apprehensive of the impending ruin from the glut 
of American grain and beef, and who are struggling 
under a rent of $20 to $25 an acre against the prod- 
ucts of the free soil of our Western plains, we 
reach the ancient town of Haddington, the birth- 
place of John Knox, on the outskirts of which 
stands the massive monument to his memory, in the 
shape of an academy built a few years ago by the 
contributions of the whole Presbyterian world. 

Wandering around the quiet environs of the 
place, I am surprised at suddenly finding myself 
gazing upon the majestic, venerable, picturesque, 
ivy-clad ruins of a Gothic cathedral of the twelfth 
century, built by that remorseful monarch David I., 
whose splendid architectural achievements are yet to 
be found in so many parts of the land. The scene 



ROMANCE AND PATHOS. 



39 



is impressive and inviting in the sunshine of this 
soft summer day, and the peaceful graveyard around 
the ruins is rich with the mortal relics of many gen- 
erations. The rustic grave-digger is at work with 
his spade in a secluded quarter of the grounds, and 
glad enough, in his broad Scotch dialect, to wel- 
come a stranger in his lonesome toil. The walls of 
the cathedral, with their grand Gothic window 
spaces, and the columns of the interior, stand as 
they were built seven centuries ago, but nearly all 
the roof is gone, and the sky is above you as you 
stand within the consecrated precincts. " Here," 
says the grim sexton, '' is the grave of such-an-one, 
and there is the tombstone of such-another-one, and 
yonder is the monument of that great man " — about 
whom he tells us a tale of weal or woe as we pass 
hither and thither among the mounds. 

Inside the cathedral walls the grassy sod is dotted 
with tombstones, bearing names almost obliterated 
by time and tempest, and in an alcove of the wall 
itself is the vault with the recumbent marble mailed 
effigies of two knights or earls who were lionored 
with a rhyming and drooling inscription from the 
royal hand of King James I. With pride the sexton 
showed the effigies, showing also other titled names 
that decorate the spot. ''And there," said he, 
while mooling along, as he pointed out a flagstone 
bearing two names, one of which was but a few 
years old, "there is Mrs. Carlyle's grave." "The 
wife of Thomas Carlyle?" I inquired. "Ay," said 
he, " ay, ay." 

And I saw that it was, and that this was the 
tombstone glorified by that immortal epitaph, the 



40 JOHN SWIN TON'S TRAVELS. 

finest tribute ever paid to wife or woman, in which 
the illustrious literary giant — 



Mightiest Titan of ruggedest mind 
Frowning majestic on feeble mankind- 
after referring to her long years of wise and helpful 
companionship, says that, by her death, "the light 
of his life is clean gone out." 

"And Mr. Carlyle." said the sexton, " comes here 
from London now and then to see this grave. He 
is a gaunt, shaggy, weird kind of old man, looking 
very old the last time he was here." " He is eighty- 
six now," said L "Ay," he repeated, "eighty-six, 
and comes here to this grave all the way from Lon- 
don." And I told the sexton that Carlyle was a 
great man, the greatest man of the age in books, and 
that his name was known all over the world ; but 
the sexton thouglit there were other great men lying 
near at hand, though I told him their fame did not 
reach beyond the graveyard, and brought him back 
to talk of Carlyle. "Mr. Carlyle himself," said the 
grave-digger softly, " is to be brought here to be 
buried with his wife, ay." "He comes here lone- 
some and alone," continued the grave-digger, " when 
he visits the wife's grave. His niece keeps him 
company to the gate, but he leaves her there, and 
she stays there for him. The last time he was here 
I got a sight of him, and he was bowed down under 
his white hairs, and he took his way up by that 
ruined wall of the old cathedral, and round there 
and in here by the gateway, and he tottered up here 
to this spot." 

Softly spake the grave-digger, and paused. Softer 



THE MAN OF EARTHQUAKES. 41 

still, in the broad dialect of the Lothians, he pro- 
ceeded : "And he stood here a while in the grass, 
and then he kneeled down and stayed on his knees 
at the grave ; then he bent over, and I saw him kiss 
the ground — ay, he kissed it again and again, and 
he kept kneeling, and it was a long time before he 
rose and tottered out of the cathedral, and wandered 
through the graveyard to the gate, where his niece 
stood waiting for him." 

I almost shrink from putting on paper these 
words of the rustic grave-digger that day ; but is 
not the scene one for art and poetry ? And does 
it not show the rugged sham-destroyer of other days, 
he of the sanguinary blade and the loud artillery, in 
a finer light than that of any page of his hundred 
books ? 

THE MAN OF EARTHQUAKES— KARL MARX, 

One of the most remarkable men of the day, who 
has played an inscrutable but puissant part in the 
revolutionary politics of the past forty years, is 
Karl Marx. A man without desire for show or 
fame, caring nothing for the fanfaronade of life or 
the pretense of power, without haste and without 
rest, a man of strong, broad, elevated mind, full of 
far-reaching projects, logical methods and practical 
aims, he has stood and yet stands behind more of 
the earthquakes which have convulsed nations and 
destroyed thrones, and do now menace and appal 
crowned heads and established frauds, than any 
other man in Europe, not excepting Joseph Mazzini 
himself. The student of Berlin, the critic of Hegel- 
ianism, the editor of papers, and the old-time corre- 
spondent of the Ne-iu York Tribune^ he showed his 



42 JOHN SWINTON'S - TRAVELS. 

qualities and his spirit; tlie founder and master- 
spirit of the once dreaded International, and the 
author of Capital, he has been expelled from half 
the countries of Europe, proscribed in nearly all of 
them, and for thirty years past has found refuge in 
London. 

He was at Ramsgate, the great seashore resort of 
the Londoners, while I was in London, and there I 
found him in his cottage, with his family of two 
generations. The saintly-faced, sweet-voiced, grace- 
ful Avoman of suavity, who welcomed me at the 
door, was evidently the mistress of the house and 
the wife of Karl Marx. And is this massive-headed, 
generous-featured, courtly, kindly man of 60, with 
the bushy masses of long revelling gray hair, Karl 
Marx ? His dialogue reminded me of that of Socra- 
tes — so free, so sweeping, so creative, so incisive, so 
genuine — with its sardonic touches, its gleams of 
humor, and its sportive merriment. He spoke of 
the political forces and popular movements of the 
various countries of Europe — the vast current of the 
spirit of .Russia, the motions of the German mind, 
the action of France, the immobility of England. 
He spoke hopefully of Russia, philosophically of 
Germany, cheerfully of France, and sombrely of 
England — referring contemptuously to the "atom- 
istic reforms" over which the Liberals of the British 
Parliament spend their time. Surveying the Euro- 
pean world, country after country, indicating the 
features and the developments and the personages 
of the surface and under the surface, he showed that 
things wero working towards ends which will assur- 
edly be realized. 

I was often surprised as he spoke. It was evident 



THE MAN OF EARTHQUAKES. 43 

that this man, of whom so little is seen or heard, is 
deep in the times, and that, from the Neva to the Seine, 
from the Urals to the Pyrenees, his hand is at work 
preparing the way for the new advent. Nor is his 
work wasted now any more than it has been in 
the past, during which so many desirable changes 
have been brought about, so many heroic strug- 
gles have been seen, and the French Republic has 
been set up on the heights. As he spoke, the ques- 
tion I had put, '''■ Why are you doing nothing now ?'' 
w^as seen to be a question of the unlearned, and one 
to which he could not make direct answer. Inquir- 
ing why his great work, Capital^ the seed field of 
so many crops, had not been put into English as it 
has been put into Russian and French from the 
original German, he seemed unable to tell, but said 
that a proposition for an English translation had 
come to him from New York. He said that that 
book was but a fragment, a single part of a work in 
three parts, two of the parts being yet unpublished, 
the full trilogy being Land, Capital, Credit, the 
last part, he said, being largely illustrated from 
the United States, where credit has had such an 
amazing development. Mr. Marx is an observer of 
American action, and his remarks upon some of the 
formative and substantive forces of American life 
were full of suggestiveness. By the way, in refer- 
ring to his Capital, he said that any one who might 
desire to read it would find the French translation 
much superior in many ways to the German orig- 
inal. Mr. Marx referred to Henri Rochefort the 
Frenchman, and in his talk of some of his dead 
disciples, the stormy Bakunin, the brilliant Lasalle, 
and others, I could see how deeply his genius had 



44 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS, 

taken hold of men who, under other circumstances, 
might have directed the course of history. 

The afternoon is waning toward the long twi- 
light of an English summer evening as Mr, Marx 
discourses, and he proposes a walk through the sea- 
side town and along the shore to the beach, upon 
which we see many thousand people, largely chil- 
dren, disporting themselves. Here we find on the 
sands his family party — the wife, who had already 
welcomed me, his two daughters with their children, 
and his two sons-in-law, one of whom is a professor 
in King's College, London, and the other, I believe, 
a man of letters. It was a delightful party — about 
ten in all — the father of the two young wives, who 
were happy with their children, and the grand- 
mother of the children, rich in the joysomeness 
and serenity of her wifely nature. Not less finely 
than Victor Hugo himself does Karl Marx under- 
stand the art of being a grandfather ; but, more for- 
tunate than Huq;o, the married children of Marx 
live to make jocund his years. 

Toward nightfall he and his sons-in-law part 
from their families to pass an hour with their Amer- 
ican guest. And the talk was of the world, and of 
man, and of time, and of ideas, as our glasses tinkled 
over the sea. 

The railway train waits for no man, and night 
is at hand. Over the thought of the babblement 
and rack of the age and the ages, over the talk 
of the day and the scenes of the evening, arose 
in my mind one question touching upon the final 
law of being, for which I would seek answer from 
this sage. Going down to the depth of language, 
and rising to the height of emphasis, during an 



HERE AGAIN. 45 

interspace of silence, I interrogated the revolution- 
ist and philosopher in these fateful words : 

" What is r 

And it seemed as though his mind were inverted 
for a moment while he looked upon the roaring sea 
in front and the restless multitude upon the beach. 
*' What is .?" I had inquired, to which, in deep and 
solemn tone, he replied : '' Struggle f 

At first it seemed as though 1 had heard the echo 
of despair ; but, perad venture, it was the law of life. 

IRELAND. 

After leaving Liverpool, I passed an Irish after- 
noon in the County of Cork, while our steamship 
was delayed at Queenstown, the city of beggars. 

I had a flying ride in an Irish jaunting-car, bought 
a shillelah, procured a bunch of shamrock, got hold 
of an Irish bull, was taken into a shebeen kept by a 
queer old crone, saw a Danish tower, ate cockles 
sold by a widow with seven children, heard a queer 
speech, visited the costly new cathedral at Queens- 
town, met a fine old Irish gentleman in the person 
of Richard O'Sullivan, questioned men and women 
as to sundry things, saw some of the more palpable 
evils of the Irish land system, and was grieved as I 
saw the fruits of the wrongs of Ireland. 

HERE AGAIN. 

Ho, ho ! New York. 

Ay, after the salt seas, and the stiff breezes, and 
the ten days' voyage of life under the rigging, here 
at last is my own unkempt city of New York. 

Our huge steamship toils up to the wharf. Off 
from her deck, down to the docks. Away in a time- 



46 JOHN S WIN TON'S TRAVELS, 

worn hack, which w^hirls me through a filthy, 
wretched quarter of the city. But here, in a few 
minutes, is Washington Square, and now up and 
onward for my old home. 

Wei], this city of mine differs from Paris ; my 
esteemed fellow-citizens are not Parisians ; these 
streets and houses are not those of the diamond 
city of the Seine. 

Yet here we must toil, waiting for the things 
that are to be. 



The End. 



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